


Bedtime Stories for the Revolution

by perceptivefics



Series: Saga of the Signless [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Quadrant Vacillation, Slow Burn, Worldbuilding, we get to watch the little baby grow up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 00:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14032596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perceptivefics/pseuds/perceptivefics
Summary: Since his very hatching, it was as though the planets themselves had aligned to ensure for his every provision. Still, his upbringing was a humble one, full of uncertainties and experiments. Many times, things could have been different. But he always seemed to have a gift for knowing which decision to make and when.Prequel toCountdown to Dawn.The story of the young Signless and the seeding of his revolutionary movement prior to his capture.





	Bedtime Stories for the Revolution

**Author's Note:**

> So, essentially, I was extremely unhappy with the haphazard approach to worldbuilding for my Alternian headcanons in Countdown to Dawn. I was also very disappointed with my continued lack of focus on Signless's characterization. I needed a solution to solve both problems, buuuut I also didn't have room or patience to try and cram it all into CTD.
> 
> And so while I am also in the process of rewriting CTD, I am also writing this prequel.
> 
> This is primarily going to be a lot of worldbuilding woven into storytelling about the Signless. Lots of quadrant flipping/vacillating/etc. will happen as far as pairings. It is a story about the Signless, yes, but it's also about Dolorosa, Disciple, and Psii in equal measure. Basically this is going to be my love story to the way this little group develops in the parameters of how I envision Alternia operating in my head.
> 
> Content warnings will be posted chapter-by-chapter, but some sensitive materials will likely be covered along the way. Story tags may also update as chapters are posted. In general, though, paying attention to the CW sections at the beginning of each chapter should keep you posted. Also, I can't promise updates will be regular, since I work a full-time job, but I will definitely post up new chapters whenever they are ready.
> 
> Have fun and enjoy the ride!

Though you could hardly know it at the time, from the moment you saw a tiny, mutated little body wiggling beneath its fellow insectoid grublings, your attachment was more or less guaranteed.

 

It was cherry-red when you found it: deep enough in the Mother Grub’s caverns that you were just coming upon the batches of fresh awakeners. The ones that hadn’t already begun the extensive crawl to the lusii pools. It was still sticky and glistening with hatchling ooze even at a glance, and far too small compared to the others. Its color was like a warning; a premonition - dare you use the term - of the kind of life it could be doomed to lead.

 

In your mind you knew you should have left it, but you crossed the caverns anyway. Hatched grublings of all colors skittered around your feet, inchworming blindly forward. Your dress was hiked up and tied off around your hips and thighs, your feet bare, your wings spread up as high as they would reach. There’s never any sense in dirtying your clothes while you do your job, or letting your wings drag through the sticky, sopor-like eggslop covering the rocky cave floor. Plus, if you leave your skirts down, often the little ones will try to climb you. It is never a pleasant experience to be covered in baby grubs from head to toe.

 

You spied the flash of red from the corner of your eye, heard the pitiful screams, and went right towards it - as if guided by fate. Or stupidity. Definitely stupidity, you thought. Why else would you repeat to yourself _leave it, leave it, let it alone, it is the way of things_ while acting completely contrary to your own advice, braving a squirming sea of babies to see what the fuss was about? No other reason than that, surely. None that you can think of.

 

Even the crying it made was the most miserable you had ever heard. It was a barely audible series of high-pitched squeals: hungry, raw, and begging by instinct alone for some small act of mercy. It certainly didn’t help that it appeared - from what you could see - to be _especially_ soft-bodied, like it never got enough of the necessary nutrients while it was incubating in the shell. It was also clearly under-nourished and lacking in strength, and in _a lot_ of pain, for it was being downright trampled by the rest of its brood siblings. They paid the underdeveloped red monster little to no mind, instinct-driven baby brains seized by a deep-rooted call to survival of the fittest. Tiny insect legs stabbed its bright sectioned body over and over again. It squeaked and bubbled and screamed, undulating frantically in its agony beneath the brood.

 

You drew closer by the second to the little red baby, its blood and body too vivid to be rust. You really should have left it to lay there, but you just couldn’t stop yourself. You were consciously aware that this was not the way of your kind. Leave the weak to perish while the strong ones make the crawl: it was the tradition of your race from birth, and none knew that better than you. The most prized among your color; the Green Mother to the Mother Grub. It is your obligation to Alternian society to uphold that tradition, after all. Breaking the cycle was punishable by death, even among the highest in the castes. Save perhaps the Empress herself - but you keep those suspicions private. Questioning the Empress is _also_ punishable by death.

 

Some of the grublings’ little legs caught it in the eyes before you shooed them aside and picked it up, causing it to squeal again, hiccuping and curling in on itself in protection. It was a shivering, bleeding blob by the time you had it in your palms. It rattled its pincers and kept its eyes closed, whimpering and squeaking. Sure enough, your suspicions were correct: the color was absolutely hideous and the body confirmation was all wrong. It was runted and spindly; weak in every sense of the word. The most pathetic and ugly thing you’d ever laid eyes on.

 

But now you are holding it, because you failed to leave it to its predetermined fate. You could have made this easy for yourself. Eventually, the other grubs would have squashed it into the dirt and the rocks, body becoming an unrecognizable smear of color and gore. Alas, hindsight was always perfect, was it not? And now it is up to you to make the ultimate decision of this wiggler’s life.

 

Can’t be helped, you think, reaching between the folds of your dress at your hip. May as well put it out of its misery. Not that you can do anything about it anyhow; even if you felt anything for the poor creature, legally, no village or city or backwater cave in the world would be safe for you if you didn’t cull it now. The stars themselves would turn their shine from you. All your social and political clout would be thrown to the wayside. The Empress would not only fail to protect you, she would actively petition for your execution. Your society, by nature, is unforgiving on individuals perceived as anything less than physically perfect.

 

It is for the best. It will know nothing but misery in life anyway, if it even makes it past the caves.

 

The miniature culling fork is in your other hand as the ugly creature begins to unfurl in your left palm. It is your most prized and important tool of the trade: jade-handled and half the length of your forearm, freshly sharpened in anticipation of today's work. You could make it swift, you think. You're practiced enough at it; a few quick twists, and it can be over. You're even quite committed to it if you do say so yourself: you raise your hand, fork poised, turning the red grub until it is belly-up in your palm. It's an act of mercy, you think to yourself. It's the kindness that makes you do it. Better you make the blow yourself, quick as a thought. The alternative was to leave it to the ground, for the aforementioned fate of being squashed to death.

 

The grubling opens its little black eyes, ugly newborn face staring at you with a sentience you are familiar with. You see it in all of them right before you do the culling, and though there is no love from you for these tiny creatures, you have to steel your pusher every time you do it. You always insist you feel no specific emotion for the grubs, other than your duty to society, but something about their hideous baby pincers and dumb, wet eyes always gets you anyway somehow. Your hand pauses. The abomination burbles at you curiously; it knows you are fundamentally different from the rest of its torrential surroundings.

 

It has the audacity to _smile_ at you, infant pincers and all.

 

God, you can _feel_ the trembling in your hand, the tentative hesitation settling on your shoulders. The fork shakes as you prod the tips against its neck. There's barely any force behind it before the creature screams again.

 

You tuck your culling fork away in the folds of your dress and swaddle the monstrous thing in your shawl. The green does enough to counteract the eye-searingly bright color of the grubling’s body that you're pretty sure you can make it back to your cave, at the very least. Your home in town is out of the question; too many prying eyes and business visits to keep this kind of secret.

 

By the time you've reached your little outpost in the mother grub’s caves, the little beastie’s gone quiet. You make up a semblance of a nest out of old scraps of cloth and a little throw pillow, using a basket that held your sewing tools moments before you cleared it out. You're tired, after all, you say to yourself - hatching cycles always throw your sleep schedule out the window, diurnal as you are, but you have to be awake during the dark hours right now. To check on the eggs and the pools and the mother grub and countless other factors.

 

Your hand will steady by morning, along with your nerves. You'll see to the culling at daybreak.


End file.
